The voter registration exercise in
Zanzibar has been suspended amid fears of unrest as many people were denied
registration because of lack identity card. There has been political tension since
the registration of voters began on the island of Pemba in July 2009.

Hamad
Rashid, a member of the opposition Civic United Front and leader of the
opposition in parliament, told VOA that a constitutional change in Zanzibar
that requires voters to have a residence card had led many people to be turned
away at registration centers.

“It
[voter registration] was suspended because there was a serious problem. Unfortunately,
Zanzibar passed a residency law which requires Zanzibaris to have IDs [identity
cards] and there are many people without these IDs, so we asked the Zanzibar electoral
commission [ZEC] to rectify the situation first”.

Rashid
explained that many people do not have residency cards because of lack of transparency,
and the fact that residency cards are also linked to voter registration. “You cannot
be in the voter register unless you have a residency card.” He added that this
has affected registration of voters especially in Pemba where he said the
opposition is strong. “There is a system of reducing the number of voters,
especially in areas where we are strong. This also happened in 2005”.

He expressed concern about the high deployment
of security forces in some areas during the voter registration exercise. “We
are astonished when we saw not only the police but the army in areas such as Wete.
We have complained about this involvement of the army in voter registration. We
think their aim is to deny people the right to register”.

Rashid
accused the army of involvement in planning to rig the election during registration
period. “This time they have planned to rig the election during registration. So
they are intimidating people not to go for registration,” he said.

He
also said there might not be enough time to have everyone registered before the
deadline on December 20, 2009 but hastened to add “it is better to have a free,
fair and transparent election than to rash and have a problem like happened in 1995,
2000, and 2005”.

Past elections in
Zanzibar have featured violence during the campaign season, the election, and
especially in the days and weeks following the announcement of election
results.